Growing Up as an Asian German, Part Two

One of the
few places where I felt that I really belong, where it didn’t matter if my skin
had a hint of yellow and my hair was pitch black, was church. My parents have
always been very Catholic and passed it on to their children. At the age of
eight I started serving as an altar girl – belonging was simple: You just
follow the rules, make the right steps at the altar and everything will be fine.
You will be a respected part of the group. Outside church services and Sunday masses
it was more complicated. Even if I followed the social rules religiously (no
pun intended), I was not entirely part of the play.

“Those outlanders!”

Connecting
with other Vietnamese, let alone other Asian people (who my parents found
acceptable), didn’t happen. One reason was that the next larger community was
an hour car drive away. My siblings and I found it also weird to hang out with
Vietnamese people just because they were Vietnamese. “I don’t want to
contribute to the ghettoization of Asians,” my older brother used to say. Those
gatherings would never last long enough to make friends. Besides, what was the
point? I knew the judgmental looks that my siblings and I got from our German
environment too damn well. We were a group of four and people stared at us when
we walked around, sometimes with curiosity, sometimes with disgust. “Those
outlanders get way too many offspring!” their eyes seemed to say, scrutinizing
us. Their disdain was almost palpable. Why enforcing those resentments by
grouping up with other Asians?

My
perception of my identity gradually shifted to the better once I went to
university and spent more time on the internet. The German media is even worse
in diversity than Hollywood, but the internet offered so many Asian faces and
voices that it became almost hard to choose. I learned that in the United
States, Canada and Australia, there are many more people like me: Stuck between
their Asian heritage and the western culture they grew up in, facing unfair
judgment, racial slurs and bullying. Finally – I found people I could relate
to. The more I watched their videos on YouTube and the more I read their articles,
the more I felt ok being me. I learned to accept this very existence that the
universe had given to me and to embrace it.